The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1 (35 page)

  After a particularly long explanation of the geography of England and its relation to the homelands of the Trojans and Scythians, Lord Brooke fell to coughing, and a servant pressed a goblet of wine into his trembling hands.

  "You should not have come out in this inclement weather, Brooke," Effingham said.

  "It is a mild ague, nothing more," Lord Brooke wheezed. He took out a small bottle and tipped some of the contents into his wine.

  Kiiren held out his hand, and the bemused Brooke passed him the bottle.

  "Don't taste it, it could be poison!" Mal cried.

  Everyone stared at him. Effingham sprang to his feet.

  "Are you accusing my guest of trying to kill the ambassador?" The admiral's weather-beaten features were flushed with rage.

  On stage, the actors fell silent, and everyone turned to stare at the lords' gallery.

  "No, my lord." Mal fell to one knee and bowed his head, cursing inwardly.

  "Please forgive our man Catlyn," Kiiren said, bowing low to the admiral and his party. "It is my error, being curious."

  "Apology accepted, of course, Your Excellency."

  Effingham sat down again, gesturing for the play to continue. Mal felt a touch on his shoulder, and looked up. Kiiren motioned for him to return to his position on guard.

  "This medicine, Lord Brooke," the ambassador said, "you take it often?"

  "Whenever the ague returns," Brooke said, and drank his wine down in one draught. "Bought it from an apothecary in Venice. Very learned folk, the Turks, for all their barbarity. Why, think you can do better?"

  Effingham turned pale, and an awkward silence descended on the party.

  "I commend your apothecary," Kiiren said. "We did not know trade in our herbs had spread so far, or their virtues had such renown."

  Lord Brooke muttered something under his breath. Effingham burst into laughter.

  "Hoist with your own petard, Brooke," he said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "That'll teach you to try to best the skraylings at their own game!"

  At that moment, thunder rumbled and the goddess Ate reappeared to narrate the prologue to Act Three. Mal took advantage of the distraction to retreat to his lookout post at the far end of the gallery. What had he been thinking? That Brooke would risk poisoning himself on the minuscule chance the ambassador would take an interest in his medicine? Leland had been right. He should think less and apply himself to the job he was hired to do.

 

After about an hour, the theatre door opened and several serving men left, complaining loudly about the crush within. Coby watched them from her vantage point across the lane.

  "Run out of beer already?" the doorman asked them as they trooped away.

  "Aye. And that skrayling brew as well."

  "Better get plenty more, then," he shouted after them. "There's nigh on three thousand thirsty folk in there. The more you sell, the happier old Henslowe will be."

  Coby leapt up. This was her chance. She strolled away down the lane, but as soon as she was out of sight of the theatre doors she backtracked towards a nearby inn which she knew belonged to Henslowe. Sure enough, the serving men were there, knocking back pints of ale to quench their own thirst before getting back to work.

  "Master Henslowe told me you needed more help supplying the theatre crowds," she said to the innkeeper. "He promised me sixpence."

  "Don't I know you from somewhere?" The man squinted at her in suspicion.

  "I'm a friend of Ned Faulkner, Henslowe's copyist."

  The innkeeper laughed, showing several missing teeth.

  "Good luck to you, then, lad," he said. "Faulkner's lackey or no, that'll be the hardest sixpence you earn all year."

  When the men from the theatre had finished their break, Coby lined up with them outside the brewhouse door. Someone passed her a crate of beer, which she balanced on one shoulder. With a bit of luck, she could walk straight in past the doormen and they would never see her face.

 

Leaning against the pillar at the end of the gallery, Mal felt rather than heard a knock on the connecting door. He opened it a crack.

  "Master Catlyn?"

  "Hendricks!" he said, breaking into a smile at the sight of a familiar face. "What brings you here?"

  The boy looked graver than usual, and he glanced warily around.

  "There is something I must tell you, sir, in private."

  "Then it must wait," Mal replied. "We cannot speak privily here. I am on duty."

  "Please, sir, this is very urgent," Hendricks said in a low voice. "It's about your brother."

  "Which one?"

  "Sandy."

  Mal's heart lurched. This was too much of a coincidence. After a brief glance towards the ambassador, he beckoned the boy inside. The audience were roaring with laughter at a comical fight between Strumbo and his wife; even the ambassador and his guests were paying too much attention to the antics on stage to notice a visitor.

  "Is something wrong?" he asked Hendricks, leaning close to make himself heard. "Is he – Is he dead?"

  "I– I don't know, sir. I don't think so."

  "All right. Tell me everything–" He held up his hand and glanced pointedly at the ambassadorial party. "Tell me in your own tongue. Speak slowly, and use simple words I can understand."

  The boy cleared his throat.

  "I come from your friend, Ned," he said in Dutch. "Two wicked men found him, said they would hurt him if he did not tell them about you and your brother."

  "Ned is hurt?"

  "Only a little. But they used him to steal your brother away."

  "Steal?" Mal asked. He knew the word well, though he had only heard it used in the context of looting.

  "Yes, sir."

  Mal made the sign of the cross. Sweet Mother of God, Ned, what have you done?

  "When?"

  "Yesterday morning."

  Whilst we were far away at Nonsuch. Very convenient. But the implications of that line of reasoning did not bear thinking about…

  The comic scene ended, and Kiiren looked round at last.

  "What is happen? Who is this?"

  Mal bowed low, and gestured to Hendricks to do likewise.

  "Nothing of import, sir, merely a servant come to ask if we need more refreshments."

  He took a shilling from his pocket and gave it to Hendricks.

  "Here's for your trouble, lad," he said in a loud voice, then added in an undertone, "Wait for me outside the theatre."

  "Thank you, sir," Hendricks replied brightly, though his eyes were filled with concern. Bowing again to the lords and gentlemen, he left the gallery.

  Mal spent the rest of the play in an agony of frustration, scarcely able to stay still. The clamour of the crowd was no more than a murmur in his ears, the drama onstage hollow puppetry devoid of meaning. One thought alone raged back and forth in his mind like a wounded bear: the bastards who had done this would suffer, and soon.

 

Coby didn't sit and wait for the play to end. First she ran to the nearby Mirror and made her excuses to Master Naismith.

  "I have a chance to meet the ambassador and find out what he thought of the Admiral's Men," she added, after her initial apologies.

  "Not tonight," Master Naismith said. "By skrayling tradition, the judge of a drama contest must withdraw from company after the performance, to meditate upon what he has seen."

  "But–" She racked her brains for another excuse. "Master Catlyn has need of me. If I can continue to be of service, I might get to speak to the ambassador tomorrow."

  "Very well then. This shabby crew need to practise without their leading strings for a while. Get back to the Rose, but do not stay o'erlong."

  She thanked him profusely and ran back to the other theatre. The Rose was situated in the old gardens of the brothel of the same name, which was also owned by Henslowe. Access to the theatre was via an archway piercing the brothel, there being no lanes or alleys interrupting the continuous row of stew-houses on this stretch of Bankside. She could hardly stand around on the street here, lest she be mistaken for either a prospective customer or a male varlet. Instead she took herself along the riverbank to Falcon Stairs, where she could at least feign to be waiting for someone.

  As it was, she was propositioned at least thrice before the play ended and the audience began pouring out onto the street. Her disguise might not be a complete defence, but she dreaded to think how much worse it would have been, were she dressed as a girl. No wonder the city fathers forbade women to wear men's clothes; if her sisters knew how much freedom it might win them, none would willingly don skirts again.

  Theatregoers swarmed out of the narrow archway like ants from a nest, covering Bankside in a mass of noisy, sweating humanity. Fearing to be lost in the crush, Coby crossed the street and walked back towards the Rose, flattening herself against the buildings as much as possible. Better to be mistaken for a whore than be trampled or cast into the river.

  After what felt like an age, the flow of people eased from a torrent to a trickle, and she spotted a coach standing outside the Rose with four mounted skraylings as escort. More skraylings, armed with long staves, issued from the theatre exit, and behind them came the ambassador in his blue robe, with Master Catlyn towering above him.

  The swordsman helped the ambassador into the coach, then looked around for Coby. Catching his eye, she hurried over.

  "Get in the coach," he said in a low voice.

  "Sir?"

  "Just do it, will you?"

  She did as she was told, cowed by his sudden grim demeanour. His anger was understandable, she told herself, and not directed at her. She knew well that feeling of panic at being separated from one's family.

  The ambassador frowned at her as she got in, and looked questioningly at Mal.

  "This servant accompanies us?" he asked.

  "Forgive the subterfuge, Your Excellency," Master Catlyn said, climbing in after her. "It may be your custom to spend the evening in seclusion, sir, with no talk of the theatre –" Mal glanced meaningfully at Coby "– but I need to confer with my informants if I am to protect you."

  The coachman flicked his whip and they rattled off. For a while it was all Coby could do to keep her seat. The little vehicle bounced over the cobbles like a pebble skimmed across a pond; if its purpose was to shake its passengers senseless, it was doing a good job. After a while she began to get the rhythm of the movement, however, and she was able to observe the ambassador more closely.

  He was very different from the other skraylings she had seen in London, even allowing for the magnificent robes and lack of tattoos. Most skraylings were polite to the point of coldness; they kept their eyes averted and showed little emotion apart from rare flashes of anger. This one gazed about in open curiosity, and even smiled at her in sympathy when she nearly fell from her seat into the footwell of the coach.

  "I am Outspeaker Kiiren," the skrayling said, inclining his head.

  "Jacob Hendricks, of Su–" She caught herself, just in time. "Of Berchem, in the Low Countries."

  She glanced at Master Catlyn, but he was staring out of the window, a muscle working in his jaw and his left hand clenched white-knuckled over the pommel of his rapier. Her elation at seeing him again was turning to lead in her stomach. She wanted to reassure him that she would do anything to help – but not here. Besides, what could she do that Master Catlyn could not manage himself, and ten times better at that?

  For the rest of the journey she diverted Ambassador Kiiren with tales of her homeland. He was particularly interested in the dykes and dams, though she struggled to explain how they worked; she had been too young when her family fled to England.

  "There is great city in New World with canals," Kiiren said, "but this holding back of sea is unknown to us. I like to see it one day."

  "So would I," Coby replied. All this talk of her homeland had brought back so many memories.

  The coach rattled under the gatehouse of the Tower, and a chill of fearful anticipation washed over her, knowing she was now inside the dread fortress where so many good people had been imprisoned and executed. Some bad ones, too, like wicked Queen Anne. No wonder the place was said to be haunted.

  They came to a shuddering halt outside a half-timbered building in the outer ward. Coby shook her ringing head, half falling out of the coach behind the ambassador and Master Catlyn. She followed the party up a short dog-leg flight of steps to the building's entrance, uncomfortably aware of the skraylings' curious eyes upon her. She wondered if any of them had seen her at the guild house with Master Naismith and thus suspected her of spying for Suffolk's Men.

  Ambassador Kiiren retired to his private apartments for the evening, and the skrayling guards gathered in the dining chamber to await supper. Master Catlyn showed her through a door in the corner into a small octagonal room with walls of bare whitewashed stone. The air was thick with dust motes and smelt faintly of smoke. A charcoal brazier, cold and full of ashes, was the only furnishing.

  "Tell me everything you know," he said, closing the door behind him.

  She stood in the middle of the room, arms clasped behind her back, and began to relate the morning's events: Master Parrish's insistence on speaking to her, the visit to his lodgings, and Ned's account of the men who had pressed him into the service of an unknown master. When she came to the part about Mistress Faulkner's death, he placed his palms either side of one of the small windows and rested his forehead against the glass.

  "And Ned has no idea where they took Sandy?" he asked, his voice cracking on his brother's name.